“Jed was hidin’ in the cider shed through the night, but I don’t know if he’s there now. Peter thought he saw him come out, but it was too dark to know for sure.”
Haakon looked that way, weighing the dangers.
Al eyed Haakon’s bloodied shoulder. “What happened?”
“Bullet went through. Bleeding’s slowed, I think.” That was his assessment based on the fact that he hadn’t passed out yet. His shoulder hurt like the dickens, and the more he thought about it, the more he noticed the pain. Haakon lifted his gaze to the house. The sun was still low, sky a blazing pink, but there was enough light to see well now. “Where’s Harlan?” He gauged the dead man sprawled in the yard, but as Al had confirmed, it wasn’t Peter’s father.
“He’s upstairs. From what I overheard, he’s the one who started the fire. I was worried he was after doin’ it again, so I followed.”
Haakon owed Al a great thanks. With Harlan still on the loose inside, someone had to go in, and that someone needed to be him. “Wait here and cover for me. If you see anyone, try and round ’em up. We’ll do better now if we group in.” Really, he didn’t know if that was the case, but he was desperate to find everyone.
Al nodded. Suddenly someone hurried along the short end of the cidery. Peter. He ran low, aiming straight for the house, a shotgun in his grip. If Peter didn’t know who was in there, he was running straight into a shootout with his own father. Before he could think, Haakon darted off, reaching the stairs a step behind Peter and using the force to ram him into the wall. They hit hard, and Haakon grabbed him by the collar. “No!”
With no way to tell friend from foe, Peter threw a punch. Haakon ducked against it, and Peter’s face, covered in dirt and sweat, went slack with shock.
“It’s your old man in there.” Haakon said, breaking them apart. “Let me go in.”
“You can’t. You’re shot. You can’t fire a rifle if you’re shot.”
“Thanks for that bit of sense. I got my pistol.”
“It’s empty, or you’d be holding it.”
Dagnabit, was Peter always so observant? “Then give me yours.”
“There’s nothin’ in it.” Peter reached for the doorknob. “It’s my responsibility. I’ll do it.”
“Listen to me.” Haakon switched his rifle to his good arm, which was fortunately also his shooting shoulder, but it took every ounce of strength he owned—and some he lacked—to chamber a bullet. As he did, he felt a tearing inside the muscle that told him he wouldn’t be chambering any more bullets for a good long while. By sheer will he kept a groan from escaping. He hitched in a breath. “See. I got it.” Enough of a truth. Any other man he’d ask to come with him, but not Peter. His head swirled with the pain, and he blinked quickly to try and steady his vision. “Go take cover. Better yet, find the others and bring them to help. ’Specially Thor.”
Peter knew as well as Haakon did that Thor was their best shot. Not only that, where Haakon was cunning, Thor was composed. A mixture they needed because Harlan Sorrel was lethal as they came. The truth of it showed in his son’s taut face.
“And Peter, I think there might still be one of them out there, so be careful.” Haakon scanned the woods, and while he saw nothing, he had a hunch there’d been seven of them. Not just six. From what he’d learned from Thor and Jorgan, the doctor who had drawn Thor’s blood was much more deadly than Thor would have ever realized that day at the train station. Red Sorrel hadn’t been present the night at the moonshine still, but Haakon couldn’t shake the worry that the man had never been far. A tactic pulled to confuse others of their exact numbers and one Jed would be clever enough to ensure.
“There’s also Jed unaccounted for,” Haakon cautioned him.
Peter nodded his understanding.
It was a risk sending Peter off with danger still present, but it had to be safer than sending him inside. “Stay low and find Thor.” Haakon almost promised Peter that they’d get the sheriff and his men here and take Jed and Harlan down to the jail proper-like, but with the sheriff yet to show, he couldn’t guarantee it. “I’ll stall your pa best I can.”
Nodding, Peter hurried off, keeping well away from the front of the house as he ducked back into the woods. Haakon trudged inside and shoved the door closed behind him. He was making as much noise as a bat in a basket, but it didn’t really matter at this point. Peter’s father was in here somewhere, and they were going to find each other one way or another.
He crossed through the kitchen, one he’d scarcely stood in since returning. Everything was as he remembered—I da’s touches, and Fay’s and Aven’s—all of it home, which made it all the worse that an intruder was here.
Haakon’s passage through the great room was blessedly without incident, and he moved with caution up the first set of stairs. Upon seeing that the hallway was vacant, he took careful survey of Jorgan and Fay’s room before moving to the next. He leaned in, gun raised, and saw that Aven’s old room was empty. He had a sense the third room would be the same, and it was. Haakon’s gaze lifted to the attic stairs that wound up. He trained his ears for any sounds above and heard nothing.
The last time he’d gone up a stairwell, he’d gotten shot, so he held his gun ready and stayed close to the wall. Al had said the remaining Sorrels were out of ammo, so Haakon hoped Al was right as he swung up toward Aven and Thor’s room.
Something small and hard slammed into him, and Haakon crashed down against the wall. Glass shattered. What was left of the oil lamp clanked as shards below. Kerosene dripped from his shirt.
Well. Now he knew where Harlan was.
Next came down the glass kerosene jug. Haakon ducked out of the way, and it shattered across the hallway, oozing into the boards. Glimpsing movement in the doorway above, Haakon lunged up and fired. The last bullet he had access to ripped through Harlan’s thigh. The man stumbled. He spat out a slew of curses, and a box of books came crashing down next.
Haakon pressed his back to the corner of the stairwell to avoid being clobbered. “Now we’re even!” he shouted.
Why he hadn’t just taken Harlan out, he didn’t know. He supposed it was because the man was unarmed, and as reckless as it was, Haakon didn’t take to killing an unarmed man.
Unable to chamber the last few rounds, he opened the brass slider and shook out the bullets. They hit his palm, and he crammed them into his pocket for safe keeping. The nearest hiding spot was Dorothe’s old bedroom. Haakon charged in to find it much changed, but all he cared about was a place for the empty rifle. No sense leaving it around to be found should Harlan have any kind of ammo left. Haakon crammed the gun behind a wingback chair and threw a blanket over the muzzle. Next he whipped off his leather pouch and stashed it there as well.
Stepping back into the hallway, he unsheathed his knife. “You gonna come down here, or do I need to come up there?” He reeked of kerosene, and not liking how flammable he was, nor the likelihood of Harlan having another match, Haakon ripped the buttons from the front of his shirt and yanked it first away from his good arm, then his bad. He wadded up the garment and pitched it aside. The top of his winter underwear had a good soaking of kerosene as well, and with no way to take it off, he spliced his knife into the fabric and tore the top away from his torso.
At sight of Harlan coming down the stairs, Haakon rushed to finish—ripping the cloth away and readying his knife again.
Just behind Harlan trudged Jed.
Haakon’s blood cooled at sight of them together. Jed’s clothing was singed, face streaked with soot, meaty hand clasped around the handle of the ax from the cidery. He dragged the sharpened blade behind him in what had to be sheer will. Eye patch gone, the sewed-over hole of his missing eye was rutted and scarred—stating just how much he could endure.
Harlan had his own knife drawn. Behind him he pulled a sturdy chair. The wooden legs clanked down the stairs with each step he took. Blood spread in a wide patch along the top of his pants leg where a dark hole furrowed through. If Harla
n felt pain, it wasn’t showing.
“You don’t have to do this.” Haakon lowered his stance and fought the urge to back away. “You can come with us to the sheriff’s office and have a proper trial. The both of you.”
With a growl, Harlan hefted up the chair and slammed it down the hallway. Haakon ducked but it rammed against him. Seeing stars, he shook his head and stumbled to right his stance. “Don’t you think there’s been enough killing for one day?” Haakon turned the knife handle, keeping his grip light and ready.
From the table at the end of the hallway, Harlan picked up a pitcher of dried flowers and hurled it down the hall.
Haakon ducked again and it struck the wall, shattering. He slowly rose. “Really, now.”
Jed watched from the stairs.
“Do you always let others do your dirty work?” Haakon called to the general, then to Harlan, “Your own son is out there.” He stared at the man who bore the same coloring as Peter. The same tall height. Both of them had thick, cropped hair of wheat yellow. Even their shirts were the same cut—narrow in the waist, broad in the shoulder, and rendered from sturdy flannel, as though fashioned by the same woman years ago. “Your son is fighting for his life against his uncles and cousins. Do you really mean to do this?”
Lunging away, Harlan dragged forward the narrow table. He hoisted up the hunk of furniture and, with the legs poking outward, charged forward. Haakon grabbed up what was left of the chair and slammed it at him. Everything collided, and Harlan crashed past. One of the table legs rammed Haakon in the gut, jarring air from his lungs. Harlan’s knife flew from his hand, skidding down the hallway. Heaving for breath, Haakon ran back for it and scrambled to grab the weapon before it reached Jed.
A blade in each hand, Haakon centered himself in the hallway and tried not to collapse.
Or panic that there was a Sorrel on each side of him now.
His stomach throbbed from the blow, and he sucked in the deepest breath he could. Broken glass crunched under his boots.
Kerosene reeked in his nostrils. He prayed Harlan didn’t have another match.
“Seein’ as you got that out of the way,” Haakon panted, “let’s do this nice-like.” Flecks of blood mottled the bare skin of his side in a rough scrape from the table leg, and he spat out more blood from his mouth.
Jed pulled the ax forward, planting the handle in both hands. The kind of stance a man took when gauging where to strike a tree.
Haakon weighed his odds, and as poor as they were, he was faster than the old general and perhaps less injured than Harlan, who limped something fierce now. Harlan’s pants were sopping with blood, the floor sticky with it. Likely some of it was Haakon’s own now that the hole in his shoulder was oozing again. It dripped down the length of his arm, slicking the knife handles before falling in crimson drops to the floor. That side of him nearly useless, Haakon cradled both knives in his numb hand and used his good arm to drag a portion of the shattered table closer. After snapping off one of the broken legs, he held it like a club.
Without warning, Jed limped forward, ax raised. Haakon charged him, swung the table leg as hard as he could, and crashed it against the ax handle. Jed stumbled back, and Haakon swung again, this time knocking him in the side of the skull. Harlan was coming—the pounding of floorboards announced it almost as loud as his breathing. Haakon waited as long as he dared, then ducked and rammed his back up just as Harlan collided into him. It flipped the man away, who crashed into the ground. Remembering the ax, Haakon scrambled aside as Jed swung it past him and into the wall.
This was where he was going to die.
Haakon stumbled back, fighting for his feet. Fighting for consciousness. Fighting for the belief that these men couldn’t do this anymore. Not to his family and not to other innocent souls in this nation. If he blacked out between this father and son, that would be the last of him, and while he could dart into Aven’s old room, slam and bolt the door, and escape through the window, he wasn’t going anywhere. He was going to stand here until either he or they couldn’t anymore.
Haakon faltered, but managed to straighten. His left eye was swelling shut, and he blinked quickly as his vision blurred again.
Gripping the doorjamb at the far end of the hallway, Harlan was trying to rise as well, but with blood still leaking from his wound, he made slow progress. The man’s face was paled, highlighting the yellow hue still darkening his eyes. Thor’s had brightened to white again, but Thor had been resting and heeding a doctor’s advice. Who knew what Harlan had been up to.
The man still wasn’t up yet, so Haakon turned the table leg in his good hand. Jed’s weapon might have been fiercer, but he was stronger and faster. With that bolstering, Haakon charged Jed again, swinging the hickory rod into him with all the force possible. The ax clattered against the wall as Haakon rammed him. He gripped the smooth handle, desperate to wrench it free, but Jed’s hold was solid. More than Haakon could manage with a one-sided pull and loss of lifeblood. Haakon stumbled back, and as the pain of his bullet wound throttled his mind, his vision hazed almost to black. He blinked, desperate to hold on.
“Behind you,” Jed called.
Haakon looked that way just as Harlan heeded the warning meant for him. Thor was stepping into the hallway from the top of the first flight of stairs, soot stained, sweat drenched, and with a shotgun aimed at Harlan, who stood but feet from him.
Haakon owed Peter the biggest thanks of his life.
Hunched in pain, Harlan backed deeper into the hallway toward Haakon, stopping when he was centered between both of his foes. It was the four of them now—stretched along this hallway like pints lining a shelf. Panting, Haakon doubled over and wiped perspiration from his eyes with the back of his hand. He took care not to lose sight of Jed on his left as he did. The man looked exhausted. As weary and broken as everyone else here. Finally able to straighten, Haakon rammed his knife into its sheath and held fast to the other. He had to brace the table leg to his side with his bad arm, and while it was a struggle, he managed to shape enough Sign to ask Thor how many rounds he had left.
Thor lifted his finger from the trigger just long enough to indicate a single one.
“I think he’s just got the one shot,” Harlan said.
Despite everything, Haakon stared at him. He had to be bluffing. There was no way Harlan could know what Haakon had inquired in Sign. Then again, maybe Harlan had observed them over the years more than they’d realized.
“Then you can’t kill us both,” Jed said.
If Jed thought it was buckshot in that firearm, then he had some fair reasoning. He was also standing in a decent spot. Two men removed from Thor, Jed had enough obstruction in front of him to block most if not all of the pellets. Except there was one major problem with that kind of thinking.
Thor hadn’t loaded buckshot.
He had a lead ball the size of a fat acorn in that barrel of his, and enough black powder to send it to the next county.
“I’m telling y’all, you don’t want to do this,” Haakon said. “You come with us, and we call it quits. We’ll take you down to the sheriff, and nobody else has to die today.”
Harlan spat. His face twisted in anger as he turned his profile to glare back in Haakon’s direction.
The count on their crimes was so high that political justice bore an extent Haakon couldn’t fathom. Death would be easier on them—one of the reasons he didn’t want to grant it.
Angling sideways to better see them both, Harlan swayed but didn’t fall. “That little lady of yours have the baby?”
Haakon realized he’d spoken to Thor. Glaring at Harlan, Thor made no response.
“Or did something go amiss?”
Haakon stared at Harlan’s yellowed eyes and sallow skin, then it clicked in his mind like the links of a rising anchor. Harlan and the needle. The illness. The epidemic hadn’t been strong enough to take Thor down, but maybe Harlan had known that. As for Aven and the baby, it had posed the greater risk. Peter’s fath
er hadn’t been after Thor. He’d been after Thor’s heir.
His daughter.
More brutal a blow to Thor than death itself.
Harlan smiled, and Haakon craved for more than a table leg in hand.
Thor’s shoulders were heaving now. Sweat slid down his forehead, and he blinked it away.
Though his hands shook with fury and exhaustion, Haakon signed to his brother again, asking if he remembered those two squirrels on Hickory Ridge from when they were boys. The time Thor was testing out the rifling on a new .22. Understanding filled Thor’s eyes, and with souls on the line and not wild game, he gave a somber nod.
Touching the side of his finger to his lips, Haakon lowered it in the sign for sure? It was a lot to ask of a man.
Thor’s gaze drilled into Harlan. He confirmed with another nod.
With slow, unthreatening steps, Haakon centered himself in the width of the hallway, directly behind Peter’s father so that Jed was no longer shielded. Thor could take the leader now if he wanted to, and knowing as much, Jed moved—on instinct, no doubt—until Haakon was flush between him and Thor’s shotgun again.
“I’m tellin’ you now to come with us,” Haakon said for the last time as he peered past Harlan, straight into the barrel of Thor’s firearm. The last place he ever wanted to be, but this was the only way. The stench of kerosene still wafted from the floorboards as Haakon shifted his boots over the glass. “This doesn’t have to end here.” They were all centered now in the long stretch of hallway, each of them straight as a cannon blast.
Jed turned the ax handle over his hand once and then again. “And I’m tellin’ you to shut up.”
From the pocket of his shirt, Harlan pulled out a brass match safe, eyes surveying the oiled floor beneath them all. Thor’s finger eased over the trigger.
Haakon lifted his gaze to his brother’s, and at Thor’s resolute nod, he dropped flat, slamming to the ground as fast as he could. Thor ripped the trigger back, and Haakon didn’t have to lift his head to see the jolt to Thor’s shoulder from the force, the hole he’d blown in the distant wall, or to know that both Sorrels had just gone to meet their Maker.
Daughters of Northern Shores Page 29
